Monthly Archives: April 2016

April 21, 2016… The day that will forever be etched in my memory as the day that beloved Prince passed into the big purple light in the sky while I back road tripped through beautiful and wild West Virginia. It was a devastating day for certain for Prince fans, myself being one. His death wasn’t mentioned on the April 21, 2016 CBS This Morning page alongside the headlines of “Any way out?” in reference to Mr Trump being able to still gracefully exit the election process or “90 Years Strong” which referenced Britain’s oldest monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, hitting the landmark birthday. No, Prince had not yet gone to his Purple Light at that hour, at least the media was not yet alerted of his passing. The news hit around noon on TMZ first and was confirmed by many other sources by 12:30 Minneapolis time. As many others, I immediately switched my iPod to the Prince song collection and listened and repeated. Also, Minneapolis public radio live streamed a great tribute to him that I listened to well into the night. With modern technology, we were all able to spread the word within’ minutes of our “Dearly Beloved’s” death and also to listen to commentary about and music from the Purple Rain man. Posts flooded in on Facebook. My buddy and awesome fellow photographer, Josh Withers, posted a video he shot of a guitar solo he recorded at a Prince show in 2011. Memories flooded in from my college days at Pratt Institute in the 80’s. My roomies and friends from those days will all attest; in 1984 and ’85 “Purple Rain” blasted all throughout our dorm rooms and apartments. Purple Rainwas the first Prince album recorded with and officially credited to his backing group The Revolution. Originally released June 24, 1984, 2 tracks, “When Does Cry” and “Let’s Go Crazy” held #1 positions on the Billboard charts for weeks in the US, UK and Australia. My fondest memory of Prince was attending his concert 2 nights in a row in 1985 in NYC, the Purple Rain tour. The first night was so mind blowing that we went and tried to scalp tickets for night #2 and ended up getting 18th row floor seats right before the show started. We paid dearly for them, but they were worth every last purple cent! RIP Purple Rainman ;-( Much like your colleague David Bowie, your style and music pushed many limits and will live on as innovative, shocking and sexy 😉

As I was driving into the night looking for a safe spot to pull over and sleep, I reflected on what a sad day it was to have lost this great Pop/Rock icon, but I was grateful there was a break in the Election 2016 hoopla/circus that is spinning. Some days I just want to crawl in a hole and pretend that this upcoming election is not real. The drama of it all has really got some people’s panties all in a knot. For instance, I received a warning a few days ago to be “defriended” by a #feeltheBern fan who believes that Bernie supporters should not be “bashing” other candidates, but still be supporting the Democratic forerunner, Clinton. The meme this person was referring to is posted here. CNN states that “Bernie Sanders’ campaign on Tuesday April 19th, called reports of voting irregularities in New York state “a disgrace” as local officials rushed to condemn the city Board of Elections for stripping more than 125,000 Democratic voters from the rolls.” These are facts. The same scenario existed in the AZ primary. Not sure what is going on with that?… Both AZ and NY, the main states in question, are supposedly “undergoing investigation”, whatever that means. Nonetheless, “bashing” is defined as “verbalabuse,asofagroup, a person or a nation.” I simply posted something that people would hopefully see as factual, defined as…“something knowntoexistortohavehappened.”

My personal preference… I will not hide that I support Bernie, not so much because I feel he will make a great President, but because he is the lesser of all the evils and I do believe he mostly speaks from his heart. From what he speaks, he also clearly has in mind the betterment of the poverty stricken and lost middle class in the richest country in the world. Nor will I hide that I feel with great certainty that Clinton will say anything to get elected. Here’s a video of Clinton – 13 straight minutes of her “changing her mind” or basically, lying. Let’s face it, all politicians lie and granted a lot of that clip goes back many years. Yes, people can change their minds and speak different words, but what is really in her heart? Nope, no heart there… She’s all business. I personally will NOT vote for her, especially just because she’s a woman and it’s time for a female to be POTUS. (Hell, we had a black man, it’s time for a woman now!) 😉 No, the only way I will vote for Clinton is if it comes down to her and Trump as opponents. If Bernie decides to run on an Independent ticket, we’re really screwed because the would be Democratic vote will split between him and Clinton and then… Trump will have a nice, easy ticket to be the POTUS! The fact alone that Trump is even running makes the U.S. a complete embarrassment to the rest of the world, let alone most of the conscious people I know in this country. The bottom line about Trump is that he is very clearly a bigot AND a racist. This is not an opinion, it is FACT. And, Hillary’s seat at the democratic nomination table was long ago handsomely purchased. Poor Bernie doesn’t have a chance. I say, “Screw Blue no matter who.” My friend Katie Bushnell and I were talking one day last week and we were discussing the fact that anyone who has any iota of consciousness and intuition knows just by looking at a face who is basically good or evil. So, vote with your instincts and facts, folks. November is rapidly approaching, but there is still time to research the facts.

There are probably many folks who will agree that Election 2016 is quite laughable most times. Our choices are not the best. However, I haven’t “defriended” or blocked anyone on my Facebook for their political views, even a few friends that are staunch Trump supporters. They are nice people. That’s why they are my friends. I just simply question their sanity! In short, there is no reason to dislike or “defriend” anyone because of their political views, but if folks are going to let the emotions of this show get the better of them, it will turn into a much bigger and uglier circus than it already is. Opinions are like, well you know… We all have one. Let’s try to respectfully express ours and respect others’ as well. And yes, I am definitely going to make an earnest effort to refrain from “bashing” anyone, candidates or their supporters. However, I’m probably not going to sit quietly through all this. I’m going to look at facts and stay away from emotions and criticisms. I will try to be polite and respectful and abide by what my good friend Ricci Barnes always says, Peace and Love, Sue, Peace and Love 🙂